


Soul-Eater

by AFTanith



Series: Children of Akatosh [1]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Anti-Stormcloak Dragonborn, Anti-Thalmor Dragonborn, F!Dragonborn/Alduin Subtext, Foe Yay, Skyrim Main Quest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-24 01:41:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20018158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AFTanith/pseuds/AFTanith
Summary: With a Hunger to Swallow the World...Malene wakes on a cart to Helgen, where an Imperial axman waits to chop off her head. Then her day gets worse.With Skyrim's civil war raging on at the behest of Ulfric Stormcloak and the Aldmeri Dominion breathing down the neck of the empire, everything was already bad enough before dragons started reappearing in the skies for the first time since the Merethic Era. But as Mal soon discovers, the situation is far worse than anyone could have ever imagined: Alduin the World-Eater has returned to Mundus to either enslave the world orendit.With the help of a snarky housecarl named Lydia, a bloodthirsty elven mercenary named Jenassa, and a hopeless hero-wannabe named Harrold, Malene will rise to embrace her destiny as Dragonborn--even if it means going to Sovngarde and back to save the world.





	Soul-Eater

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is in no small part borne of my deep desire for Skyrim's followers to have been a bit more BioWare-ish. In other words, I want to have more than one companion at a time, I want their personalities to be far more fleshed out than they were in the game proper, and I want them to interact with one another in some capacity. So that's partially the point of this story; I'm going to try my hand at exploring the interpersonal relationships of a female Nord Dragonborn (partially inspired by Paragon FemShep, among other inspirations) and the three companions I usually bring along for my playthroughs of the main questline: Lydia, with whom even the most casual _Skyrim_ player will be familiar; Jenassa, who can also be picked up in Whiterun; and Harrold, who is primarily based upon Hjoromir from Interesting NPCs (but who ended up taking on a life of his own within my headcanon and so can now reasonably be considered a separate albeit similar character... though YMMV).

When Malene finally peeked open her eyes, everything was a blur of earth tones. She could hear birdsong, but more pressing was the sound of hoofbeats, of rumbling wheels, and of creaking wood. She was on some kind of cart, she realized, and her wrists were bound together in her lap by abrasive and unforgiving rope. Her head pounded—someone or something must have knocked her out—and she suspected she might vomit if the world didn't stop spinning soon.

On the other side of the cart from her sat a man she didn't recognize. He was Nordic and blonde, tall and muscular, and decked out in the brown-and-blue armor of the rebels. Malene groaned. What the hell had she gotten herself caught up in now?

Glancing down, Malene checked his wrists. Bound, just like hers. To his left, there sat another man, this one a dark-haired Nord who looked like he hadn't bathed in a long time. Unlike his armored companion, he wore rags and had no shoes—a dangerous combination when it came to Skyrim and its weather.

But this man was not Malene's most shocking company. To her right sat yet a third man, a third Nord. He was blonde and he was massive—built like a fucking bear. Malene stared at him in disbelief, trying to reconcile every contradictory thing about him. His shiny armor with its Windhelm heraldry was practically noble finery, but the rope around his wrists was obviously far tighter than was either safe or warranted, and the thick leather gag in his mouth made it very clear that something _weird_ was going on.

Neither Malene nor the other two were gagged, so why was this guy?

"Hey, you," said the blonde man across from her, and Malene turned her still-fuzzy vision back toward him. "You're finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us—and that thief over there."

He obviously meant the brunette man—Lord Fancypants clearly wasn't just a thief, whoever he happened to be—but Malene was barely paying attention to him. She was struggling to place what he'd just told her in her memory, but the links just weren't coming. She remembered... what did she remember? She remembered screaming and the scent of blood and the bodies of her friends lying all around her, but surely that was months ago? A year? Even longer? What had she been doing since then? Had she really been trying to leave?

Her head hurt too much to really consider it. Malene gave up on her memory; she could sort it out later, _after_ someone told her what the fuck was going on.

"Damn stormcloaks," the thief grumbled on the opposite bench. "Skyrim was fine until you came along. The empire was nice and lazy. If they hadn't been looking for you, I could've stolen that horse and been halfway to Hammerfell." He turned his head, fixing greedy eyes upon Malene. "You, there. We shouldn't be here. It's these stormcloaks the empire wants."

"We're all brothers and sisters in binds now, thief."

"Shut up back there!" someone called, and Malene startled as she realized the horse pulling the cart had a rider on its back. She couldn't see his face, but she could see his armor. Brown and crimson, the Imperial colors. Malene groaned again. She had to get out of here; this was leading nowhere good.

"What's wrong with him, huh?" asked the thief, nodding toward the gagged man across from him.

"Watch your tongue!" The vehemence and rage of the other man's response caught Malene off-guard, and she flinched away from him. The gagged man glanced at her, his eyes unreadable. "You're speaking to Ulfric Stormcloak, the true High King!"

Malene all but collapsed in on herself, dropping her forehead down onto her bound hands. She was _doomed_. "Oh, _fuck_ me," she swore. "Fucking fucking _fuck!_ "

"Yeah, that," said the thief. "You're the leader of the rebellion! If they've captured you... gods, where are they taking us?"

"I don't know where we're going," said the soldier in a soft, sad voice, "but Sovngarde awaits."

Malene turned. Soldiers in front, soldiers behind, and archers on the walls of the town that they were fast approaching. She could make a run for it, but she wouldn't be getting anywhere. Her magic, maybe? She could cast flame spells safely, and right now she didn't even care about the concept of _safe_ Even alive would be asking for a lot when it came to the outcome of this.

"No, this can't be happening!" the thief moaned. "This isn't happening!"

The soldier, oddly, seemed entirely at peace. There was not even the vaguest hint of fear in his voice as he looked at the man beside him and asked in a comforting tone, "Hey, what village are you from, horse thief?"

Said criminal sounded almost on the verge of tears. "Why do you care?"

"A Nord's last thoughts should be of home," said the soldier, and Malene shook her head minutely. She wasn't going to be thinking of home in those last moments before the Imperials cut off her head for a crime she couldn't even remember. Survival and then vengeance, certainly. But home? Malene didn't even think she had one anymore.

"Rorikstead," the thief answered. "I'm... I'm from Rorikstead."

An Imperial soldier's shout interrupted them. "General Tullius, sir! The headsman is waiting!"

Malene looked over at Ulfric Stormcloak. This was all his fault; that much, she did remember. The Jarl of Windhelm had killed the High King in Solitude, though each rumor about why and how was different from the last, and now he sought to claim the dead man's throne. _It serves him right,_ Malene thought, _that he'll be dead soon, too._ And didn't it just figure that he'd managed to get innocent bystanders swept up in his wake?

"Good," Tullius yelled back, except he didn't seem to have any reason to be yelling. He just had one of those voices, Malene supposed; it carried all the way to where she sat on the cart just before the entrance. She couldn't even _see_ the general yet, though she could hear him. "Let's get this over with!"

The horse thief started praying, and Malene had to laugh. "If they're gonna kill us as rebels anyway," she told him, "you might as well try asking Talos for reprieve."

Beside her, Ulfric Stormcloak gave her another strange, indecipherable look, and she angled her body away from him. She didn't know the man any more than she knew the Emperor himself, but she _hated_ him for what he'd brought down on her head.

Their cart rolled through the gates. "Where are we?" Malene asked. She could see the Throat of the World stretching up high above them, reaching up into the skies, but she couldn't remember what villages lay in its shadow. Ivarstead? River... something?

"Helgen," said the soldier. That barely helped; Malene knew nothing about it. She didn't know the people or the landscape or even which direction she should run if somehow she did manage to get away. Maybe she'd try to climb the mountain. She didn't think either the stormcloaks or the Imperials would want to follow her up the seven thousand steps.

"Look at him," the soldier spat, his attention now fixated upon a tanned Imperial in full regalia, perched upon a horse. Beside him was a woman of strangely yellow complexion—an Altmer, Malene realized with a jolt. She'd never actually met a high elf before. "General Tullius, the military governor. And it looks like the Thalmor are with him. Damn elves! I bet they had something to do with this."

The Thalmor were as vaguely familiar to Mal as the stormcloaks were. They were elves, she knew; Altmer, she was fairly sure. And supposedly their politics were... interesting. A redguard that Malene once knew had tried to explain it to her; the Altmer thought they were the superior race, supposedly, and they were the one who started the aggression that eventually led to Hammerfell's break from the empire and the signing of that White-Gold thing that cast Talos's divinity aside. Malene hadn't gotten it then, and she still didn't get it now. Even if the mer were somehow superior (and she found that very unlikely), why the fuck did they want some chunk of territory in Hammerfell, and what did it matter if mankind thought that Talos was a Divine?

"I used to be sweet on a girl from Helgen," the soldier said. "I wonder if Vilod is still making that mead with juniper berries mixed in. It's funny... When I was a boy, Imperial walls and towers used to make me feel so safe."

This, Malene could not sympathize with. In her experience, castles and walls meant city guards or bandits or worse, and she tried to stay as far from any of those as possible.

But there were important things to think of now. As the carts trailed along the cobblestone street of Helgen, people emerged from their homes to point and stare and whisper. Malene could hear children's voices, badgering their parents with a barrage of questions: who, why, what now? Malene hoped that if the Imperials really were about to start chopping off heads, at least the parents would be smart enough to take their children back inside. She knew quite well what could happen to a child's psyche when faced with so much death and blood.

The cart rolled to a halt before a stone tower and clearing wherein lie a chopping block. Malene couldn't take her eyes from it. That was where they meant to kill her. That was where they meant to take her head.

"Why are we stopping?" asked the horse thief, though she was sure he must already know.

"End of the line," the soldier said simply, and in her periphery, Malene could still see Ulfric Stormcloak staring. "Let's go. We shouldn't keep the guards waiting for us."

As the horse thief began to protest, Ulfric rose to his feet—Divines, he was _tall_ —and climbed down from the cart. It rocked as his weight left it, like a boat adrift on the sea, and the horse thief didn't budge until Ralof nudged him onward. Malene's stomach growled as she jumped from the wooden planks, and her bare feet met the dirty cobblestones. Her own ragged clothing, threadbare and fraying from the rough life she'd been living, left her feeling exposed, nearly naked; there were so many eyes on her now. Surely someone must see that she wasn't some rebel?

Mal wished she had her bow. None of these bastards would've been able to stop her if only she'd had a bow in her hands.

"Face your death with some courage, thief," the soldier admonished behind her, and Malene shook her head. If the man was to die here, then he was well entitled to whatever he felt.

"You've got to tell them, we weren't with you! This is a mistake!" Mal wondered if she should be touched that he was arguing on her behalf, too.

As the Imperials began shouting orders and taking the names of prisoners, one Nord in particular checking them all off on his little list, Mal found her attention wandering. They were inside the city walls; escape now would be nearly impossible without some serious distraction on a scale that she wouldn't be able to manage on her own. Standing behind Ulfric, she stared at the back of his head; she could see the outline of his gag beneath his hair. Why did he have it, she wondered again. And would taking it off of him help her escape?

Her fingers twitched. She could light a fireball, set something ablaze, and perhaps quickly untie the gag in those precious seconds of confusion. But no, she wouldn't have time for that, not without a blade to slice through the leather. She didn't even know where the knot was, let alone whether or not she'd be able to untie with her hands bound together at the wrists.

Ulfric would not be her way out of this. And then his name was called, and he walked toward the block. The soldier followed, and then the horse thief, and the while the former man walked proudly to the line where he would await his death, the thief's plan of action was even less clever than Malene's. He simply ran, his arms tied and his body defenseless, and so when the Imperial arrows pierced his unarmored flesh, he fell and bled and died face-down in the middle of the street. Malene watched him for a long moment and realized almost too late that the man with the list was trying to get her attention.

"What?" she demanded.

"Step forward," he told her, and she did. "Who are you?"

"Malene," she said. "And before you ask my crime, I'll tell you now that I don't know it. I just woke up on a cart with a headache like someone tried to split my skull." She looked down at herself, very deliberately, and quirked a brow. "You can obviously see I'm not a soldier. And if you think I've stolen something, you're quite welcome to check me. You'll find I've nothing hidden in my clothes."

The man glanced at his superior, a woman in steel armor who was standing at his side. "Captain, she's not on the list."

"Forget the list," the captain said. "She goes to the block."

Malene laughed in sheer disbelief. "He just said I'm not on your list! You're going to kill me without even knowing why?"

The woman didn't dignify her with a response. "By your orders, captain," said the Imperial soldier, and the woman stormed off without another word. "I'm sorry," the soldier said to her. "But at least you'll die here in your homeland."

Mal lifted her chin and stared him in the eye. "If you do this to me, I swear you will pay for it. If I go to Sovngarde this day, I will not rest until I bring down every Daedra and Divine upon your head. Your orders are not more important than my life."

The soldier smiled at her sadly. "The Daedra will not hear you in Sovngarde, and I am not _afraid_ of the Divines. But I am sorry; it shouldn't be this way, but it is. Your life is not as important as you think. None of us ever are..."

Malene spat in the dirt in front of him, and then she went to take a place at the stormcloak soldier's side. They were only a few feet away from where Ulfric Stormcloak stood, bound and gagged at the head of his soldiers, with General Tullius of the Imperial army staring him down. Triumph was etched into the Imperial's every feature, but he didn't seem _pleased_ exactly. Angry? Close, but not quite. Relieved? Yeah, there was definitely a bit of that.

"Ulfric Stormcloak," Tullius said, his voice ringing out with all the authority of a military leader making a grandiose speech. "Some here in Helgen call you a hero, but a hero doesn't use a power like the Voice to murder his king and usurp his throne." Ulfric growled behind the leather between his teeth, but he could form no words. "You started this war, plunged Skyrim into chaos, and now the empire is going to put you down and restore the peace."

Malene had been expecting another growl from Ulfric, but that was not what she heard. Instead, a strange sound rumbled in the distance, almost like a roar and almost like an echo. She'd never heard anything like it, and she had grown very familiar with Skyrim's wilderness sounds over the years. What had made that noise... it was big, it was strange, and it was _new_.

Malene stared at the sky, and a shiver ran through her.

Something black flecked in the sky near the tip of the Throat of the World.

"What was that?" asked a soldier.

"It's nothing," said Tullius. "Carry on."

"Yes, General Tullius!" said the captain who had condemned Malene to death. She stood near the chopping block, right beside a priestess of Arkay and the headsman himself. Malene looked at the three of them, then at the block, and then down at her hands. She had a plan—not one that she would survive, unfortunately, but one that might take a few of these bastards with her on the way out.

"Give them their last rites," the captain ordered, and the priestess stepped forward. In her lyrical voice, the woman began to pray; more than a few of the stormcloaks jeered at her, and Mal supposed she couldn't blame them. They were dying on behalf of their forbidden god, supposedly; of course they wouldn't be satisfied with last rites that legally couldn't include him.

"Let's get this over with!" snarled one of the stormcloaks, and Malene was astounded to find him walking to the block of his own accord. He knelt before it; the captain kicked him down flush with the wood; the headsman did his job.

The man's head toppled into a waiting apple crate as his body slumped off the block. Other stormcloaks shouted, hurling abuse at their soon-to-be killers, and Mal just shook her head. Was all this necessary? Was it worth it? Would it even stop the war, or would it just Ulfric a martyr? How many other jarls would rise up in the aftermath of his death? How many other would-be heroes? How many lives were they going to lose, and how many people would be left to defend against the Thalmor if the stormcloaks _did_ finally get their way?

...maybe it was best to execute these idiots after all.

"Next," yelled the captain, "the Nord in the rags!"

Mal looked left. Mal looked right. Halfheartedly, Mal even glanced behind herself.

"Guess that's me," she mumbled. Her fingers twitched, tingling with magic. The second that motherfucker lifted that ax up above her, she planned to blow them all sky high. And if by some chance Ulfric Stormcloak managed to survive... well, that bastard had better have _quite_ the 'thank you' planned for her if they someday met in Sovngarde.

Mal walked to the block with her head held high. "Last chance, guys," she said. Her voice trembled less than she'd feared it might. Was she not afraid to die? Oddly, she'd felt more frightened a minute ago, when she'd heard that horrible sound ringing out. "You don't want to do this to me. You're not gonna like what happens to you."

"Shut up," spat the captain, and she kicked Mal in the back of the leg. Mal stumbled, her knees hitting the cobblestones hard, and she fell upon the bloodied wooden block. When she looked down, the blind and glassy eyes of the decapitated stormcloak stared up at her. She could smell his blood, feel it seeping into her threadbare clothes and smearing across her exposed skin. Her stomach roiled, and she instead toward the executioner.

That terrible noise rang out again, granting her the faintest hint of a reprieve as all the soldiers looked around in confusion. "There it is again," said the man with the list. "Did you hear that?"

"Get _on_ with it!" the captain snarled.

The headsman nodded. He lifted his ax. "Any last words?" demanded the captain, her voice dripping with derision as if to mock the very idea.

Still staring up at the executioner, Mal's eyes widened in sheer disbelief. "Dragon," she breathe.

No one moved. No one else could see it yet, but Malene had the perfect view. Black as death with wings and a tail and a furious roar, it flew down over the mountain. Its roar made the earth shake, and there was fear in the headsman's eyes as he raised the ax high above his head to ready his swing. He still didn't know what was behind him, but perhaps he could sense how close his own death was.

"What in Oblivion is that?" General Tullius's voice had genuine fear in it now, and the dragon—a massive, hellish thing with black scales and horns and burning red pits for eyes—landed so hard upon the tower behind the headsman that Mal's would-be murderer fell to his knees at her side.

The dragon crawled forward on its massive, lethal claws, its horns jutting up from its head like a bizarre Daedric crown, and it leaned down toward Malene.

Everyone was screaming now, shrieking for themselves what would have been Malene's final word, and she stared up at the beast that had saved her and wondered if it knew what it had done.

It stared back down at her, jaws parting in a snarl, and each enormous tooth was as sharp and massive as a sword. Mal met its eyes, her own dark pair holding the gaze of those nightmarish, smoldering coals, and for a single, fleeting instant, Mal knew that it _was_ there for her.

Their gazes broke apart, the dragon's head shifting as it roared again, and Mal was already pushing herself up and away from the block as the sky turned to deadly storm clouds within the span of an instant and fireballs began to rain down.

Mal had to admit, this was all quite a bit more impressive than what she'd had in mind.

"Guards!" screamed Tullius. "Get the townspeople to safety!"

 _Well,_ Mal thought as she glanced down at her own still-bound hands, _it wasn't the_ worst _thing he could've said._ When she looked up, the nameless stormcloak from the cart was moving toward her, trying to catch her attention, but Mal didn't have time for that. With the Imperial soldiers now occupied by their general's new orders, Mal knew this was her only opportunity. That dragon had just given her the gift of freedom; she would be foolish indeed if she managed to squander it.

"Someone get the battlemages out here! _Now!_ " Tullius roared.

She ran past the blonde stormcloak, her wrists chafing even worse than before, and heard him follow her as she barreled toward a nearby tower— _not_ the one upon which the dragon had been perched. She flung herself up the stone steps and in through the open doorway; the stormcloak soldier came in after her, and he realized their company at the same moment Malene did.

Ulfric Stormcloak stood near the doorway, peering out at the chaos they had just left behind. Even from this side of the thick stone walls, they could hear the beating of the monster's wings as it swooped through the sky, no doubt snatching up villagers and burning soldiers alive. 

On the ground nearby, several more stormcloaks lay in various states of uselessness. But none of their hands were still tied.

"Help me with this!" Mal ordered, cutting off whatever the blonde soldier had been about to say. He stared at her in utter shock as she held her wrists out to Ulfric, staring down the would-be king in a way that made it very clear that, yes, she absolutely _had_ issued a demand.

The rebel jarl stared down at her for a moment, and then he slipped a little knife out from beneath his armor and quickly sliced her binds in two.

"Thank you," Mal said, and she started toward the stairs. "Is there another way out of here, or are we stuck?"

This time, she was ignored. The blonde had recovered from his surprise. "What is that thing?" he asked the jarl. "Could the legends be true?"

Ulfric's deep baritone would have made anything sound dramatic and important, so when the words, "Legends don't burn down villages," came out of his mouth, Mal could only roll her eyes.

"Yeah, well, this village is burning, and that dragon doesn't give a damn what we think of it. I don't suggest we sit here and just hope for the best." She glanced back at Ulfric, reaching for options. "What's the Voice?"

His stare now was blank, like he didn't know what to make of her. Outside, the Dragon roared again, and that seemed to shake the man back to action "We need to move, now!"

The blonde stormcloak grabbed Mal by the arm. "Up through the tower, let's go!"

Mal pulled herself free of him as she ran, taking the stone steps two at a time and wondering why they were going up the walls when what they needed to do was go _out_.

But before they could even make it to the top, the world around them exploded. With a truly deafening sound, the outer wall just ahead of Mal blasted inward, enormous stone bricks scattering like dandelion seeds. The dragon's head, all deadly spikes and rage-filled eyes, thrust in through the gaping hole in the wall, and Mal scrambled out of its line of sight as it blasted flames into the room. A soldier who'd been on the stairs ahead of her was flung to the ground below, his every limb on fire as he fell, and then the dragon was gone, those massive wings carrying it away to steal the life of someone other unfortunate soul.

"It's after Ulfric," the stormcloak behind her breathed, and Mal cast uncertain eyes toward him. Could that be true? What reason could the dragon have to be here, let alone to go after one specific man?

And why was Mal so convinced that it was here for _her_ instead?

Mal lingered at the gap, staring down at the blazing world below. The stormcloak seemed to take her indecision for fear. "See that inn on the other side?" he said, peering down. Mal did; the building beside the tower had been relieved of its roof, and the second floor was open to the fresh air. "Jump through the roof and keep going! We'll follow when we can!"

Mal looked at him, wondered what the fuck he was talking about— _follow where? since when are we friends?_ —and put all her strength into the wild leap that would hopefully get her down alive.

She fell past fire, and she hit the wood hard. Frantically, she patted out the flames that immediately began to lick at her ragged clothing, and then she was off at a run, plunging down through a hole in the inn's upper floorboards and finally making it to solid ground.

"Don't look up!" she heard List Guy shouting somewhere nearby, and when she edged her way out of a gap in the building's walls, she found him standing in the street and beckoning to a scared little boy. "Just focus on me. You can do it!"

The child was standing over a body—perhaps one that was even still alive. But if he meant to save the person—probably his father—he was far too late. Mal flinched as the dragon's shadow engulfed her on its way past; it hovered over the boy.

"Hamming, you need to get over here. Now!"

The boy was torn. Stand his ground and die fighting like a hero from the songs, or run to the uncertain protection of an Imperial soldier.

Hamming ran.

The decision came just in time. The ground shook and soldiers stumbled as the dragon landed right behind the little boy. The dragon shrieked, and another burst of flames engulfed the body on the ground. The Imperial soldier snatched the child up into his arms and ducked behind a the meager protection of a broken wooden building; Malene joined them at a sprint, and the boy ran into the arms of another villager, his face soaked with flowing tears.

"Still alive, prisoner?" The Imperial soldier looked surprised, but not displeased. "Keep close to me if you want to stay that way. Gunnar, take care of the boy. I have to find General Tullius and join the defense."

Malene's brows lifted. He was going to join the defense, but he wanted her to come with him? Did he think her _mad_? General Tullius might be in a tough spot, but that didn't mean he was going to let her take up a sword and fight a dragon. Hell, he'd probably chop off her head just to eliminate an extra distraction.

"Uh..."

"Gods guide you, Hadvar," said the villager, and then the soldier—Hadvar, apparently—was running, barely hazarding a glance back at Malene to see whether or not she was actually following him.

Mal hesitated. The dragon's shadow passed over her again. _Fuck_. She took off after Hadvar.

They ran down the lane and into an alleyway. "Stay close to the wall!" Hadvar screamed, and Mal pressed herself flat against the stones as the dragon once again seemed to hone in on her like a woodlands tracker. He landed on the wall right above her head, scanning the space ahead of him before releasing another murderous bellow of flame.

Then he was gone again, and Mal could convince herself that the dragon wasn't after _her_ specifically. It'd had so many opportunities already, and it hadn't killed her yet. But it did seem to keep popping up right where she was, in spite of the ample distraction that the rest of the panicked villagers should have provided.

Was she just being paranoid? Did it even matter right now?

"Quickly, follow me!" Hadvar yelled, sword raised in one hand as he waved to her with the other.

They ran through the village, weaving through sundered walls and burning buildings. They raced past soldiers, mages, villagers, dogs; everyone was screaming, shouting, _desperate_ in the face of a monster that didn't even seem to slow, no matter what they threw at it.

_Run, you idiots, _Mal thought desperately, but what could they do? The dragon seemed to be everywhere at once, and so far it didn't look as if anyone had even made a scratch upon its naturally armored flesh.__

__Hadvar kept running, obviously leading somewhere; Mal hoped he knew Helgen better than she did, but she wasn't counting on it. In fact... it looked like he was taking her right up to a dead end._ _

__And then out of nowhere came the other solider, the blonde stormcloak, and Hadvar did not seem pleased to see him. "Ralof, you damned traitor!" he yelled. "Out of my way!"_ _

__The blonde—Ralof—seemed pleased to see Malene, no matter how furious Hadvar was. "We're escaping, Hadvar," he said, his own sword raised in preparation for a fight. "You're not stopping us this time."_ _

__"Fine," spat Hadvar. "I hope that dragon takes you all to Sovngarde."_ _

__Past where Ralof stood, there it was: the door to the keep. "Shut the fuck up, both of you!" Mal snarled. "And get your asses inside!"_ _

__She shoved Hadvar forward and seized Ralof by the wrist with her other hand, just as he had done to her earlier. A wild uncertainty entered his eyes, but he let her drag him toward the door._ _

**Author's Note:**

> If there's something in particular about Skyrim that you'd like to see explored in this story/series--favorite characters, interaction between certain characters, potential fallout of canonical events, etc, etc--feel free to let me know in the comments below! I know where I'm going with this series, but there's plenty of room for detours along the way, so if you've got a headcanon or a prompt that you'd like to share, I'm happy to hear it at the very least and potentially even incorporate it.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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